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Ike’s Arsenal Eisenhower poured money into the Air Force to develop its Cold War triad of nuclear threats—land-based and sea-based missiles, ICBMs and bombers. The heavy spending didn’t let up under JFK. | Reagan’s Build-Up Claiming that the United States had “unilaterally disarmed” before he took office, Reagan oversaw a massive defense build-up. Some say the the Soviet Union’s struggle to keep up brought on its demise. | Bush’s Surge The historic peak of Army spending authority came during two land wars—in Afghanistan and in Iraq, where the military was in the midst of a 30,000-strong troop surge. Source: Department Of Defense, Budget Authority by Branch
Mark Perry, Politico: The Pentagon’s Fight Over Fighting China
The Joint Chiefs keep ordering up ambitious new war plans. But their biggest battle might be with each other.
At first, it’s hard to see Operation Desert Storm as anything less than an unparalleled American military victory. The battleship U.S.S. Missouri began the campaign to forcibly remove Iraqi forces from Kuwait by firing four Tomahawk cruise missiles at military command and control centers in Baghdad in the early morning hours of January 17, 1991. “I’ll never forget the day we launched these,” a Missouri crew member who witnessed the Tomahawk attack later wrote. “We listened to CNN radio from Baghdad after we had launched our birds. For an hour, everything was calm, but we knew sorties were on the way. Then all hell broke loose.”
In all, the United States fired 297 Tomahawk missiles from ships and submarines during the Gulf War, of which 282 reached and destroyed their targets. Nine of the missiles failed to fire, six fell into the water after their launch, and two were shot down. The Tomahawks’ carefully tabulated success rate of 94.94 percent was revolutionary, the most precise delivery of munitions on target in the history of warfare. And the Tomahawks were just one of an array of air assets used in the war’s earliest days to destroy Iraq’s military and leadership infrastructure.
WNU Editor: This is a long read, but it gives an insight into how Pentagon planners go about planning to fight the next war.
3 comments:
what are that shiting about pardon the language there split they shouldnt even be thinkn about it first place but hey thats usa for yea war scummers
China poses a huge threat to America. As such, a war strategy to confront China would seem reasonable. After all China's "war scummers" have one toward America. As such, America is not any worse morally than china nor any better. I would say in terms of expansion and the ability to do so China is much better, much more cunning, and more ruthless than America is at present.
With that said a sound strategy to deal with China would likely be at least two fold. 1.)Work on ways to lessen the dependence upon "made in China." 2.)Recognize that China is more powerful than the USA at present and likely will be for the foreseeable future. As such, try and find ways to add value to China and its leadership.
While such strategies do NOT mean we do anything and everything they want, recognizing who the superior power is would be a good place to start. With that said as long as China continues making threatening moves toward the United States it is good idea to "think about it in the first place" and prudent methods toward self defense does not make one a "war scummer." In fact, not to think about such things would be negligent. As part of a strategy, I would suggest making ourselves strong enough that the Chinese would not consider attacking us because it would be to costly for them to do so.
As it right now, I suspect Russia, China, or both of them will attack America at some point. If they did so today, there's little doubt they'd win, however, the timing may not be right for them. Instead of war scummers it seems to me US leaders, while fallible and in many cases corrupt like the leaders of all nations are despirately trying to survive and are unsure of the way forward.
Since China poses a far greater threat to America than America poses to it or likely ever could, it seems prudent to think about it and would be imprudent not to. For example, if the US even thought of using nuclear weapons against China, it would meet a Russian reprisal the likes of which the world has never seen. Even if America stops thinking about this, China won't.
I will need to read the article to see if the policies proposed are sound. I suspect they are not, as at least one of them will likely call for a straight on frontal assault on China. Straight on frontal assaults agains more powerful adversaries are not likely to end well.
Interesting article. Thank you for sharing this. Essentially the thought process seems to be how to allocate limited resources between the Air Force, the Navy, and the Army. Essentially the Air Force and the Navy seem almost to be viewed as one in the Pentagon's scenario. I think it definitely prudent that the military planners be thinking about this. This is especially true in light of the treat obligations the US has with nations in the region. (If possible, I would renegotiate the terms of some of these treaties.)
I think the current strategies place to much emphasis on the Air Force and the Navy at the expense of the Army. Should China or China and some combination of their allies choose to invade the American mainland we are going to need lots of well armed and well trained infantry. At this point, I think it not if but when China and some combination of their allies will undertake this course of action. As such, prudence suggests studying to find a way to beat them.
With a free press such as America has we get a look into how the America military plans its actions. I would find it interesting to get a better look into China's war fighting strategy. They seem to view America as the main enemy.
I will reiterate what I've said here and elsewhere for America to have adversarial relations with the world's most powerful countries does not seem a prudent way to run a country. One way to address this is to have a sound military strategy toward China that will pose enough of a challenge to them that they will consider confrontation with America more costly than it is worth. The other part of this is a sound trade policy toward China where we find something of value we can supply them with things of value they would not want to risk losing. As such, we better be thinking about this.
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